


Day Five: Non-linear Flower Bouquets

by Demia



Series: JadeRose Week [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, Gen, Panic Attacks, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 19:29:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7858171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demia/pseuds/Demia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lose a flower, get a friend. Kind of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day Five: Non-linear Flower Bouquets

**Author's Note:**

> Finishing this was hard, but I did it!  
> Now I only need to write day seven of JadeRoseWeek. I'm not late at all.  
> (And then maybe I will write something for Rosemary month. Maybe. I have a few things already written, but they need a whole lot of editing and... yeah, I don't have a much time on my hands...)

## 

Day Five: Gardening

  


### Non-linear Flower Bouquets

You step in a pot and fall to the ground, face first.

Your nose is dripping blood and there is a sharp, quickly numbing pain in your entire face, and you wonder, only half terrified, if Grandpa is capable of repairing a broken nose. 

Out here, in the middle of the ocean, there's not really a whole lot of hospitals and doctors. 

“'anpa!” you shout, and he comes running, rifle at the ready in his hands, set to maim and destroy everything that dared hurting you. 

“Jade!” he screams, springing into the greenhouse like a man possessed, and he looks everywhere but from the floor where you're sprawled. “Where the frick-frack are you?”

“Down here,” you say, and wave at him. “I have a booboo, can you fix me?” you ask him, smiling wide. Blood falls in your mouth and you're left to swallow it. 

Yuck. 

“Golly fucking gosh,” he whispers, and then twitch and huffs at his own use of foul language. “What did you do, lass?”

“Fell down on my face? What does it look like, 'pa?” You raise both your eyebrows and your hand at him, and he pulls you back on your feet. 

“Looks like a lass that never pays attention. Here, don't eat the blood,” he chides, wiping your face with his handkerchief. 

“Can you fix me or not?” you ask again, and he bops your head. 

“Yes, yes, little impatient imp, I can fix a broken nose. You don't know how many broken noses I had to set right in my life, Jade.”

“Less bragging, 'pa,” you scold him, and keep smiling wider and wider. He bops you again and you fall asleep. 

*

Your nose if finally healed completely.  
It doesn't hurt anymore, not even when you smash your face in your pillow to sleep, and you're so grateful to your Grandpa for fixing it perfectly, it doesn't even show that it was broken just a month ago. 

You're allowed to come back to the greenhouse now, and you're pleasantly surprised to notice that your Grandpa did care for the flowers. Not as much as you, no, his interests lay another way, but he took good care of them. 

Considering how few they are, you wouldn't think this a very big effort from anyone else, but your Grandpa has his mind constantly in the clouds. It's a miracle he remembered to water them and to cut off the old, dried up flowers. 

You're so happy, you dance all over the place, tripping on every single empty pot you have laying around, and the noise must be tremendous, because your Grandpa calls your name, boisterous as always, and concerned. 

“Yes?” you ask him, peeking your head down the staircase, laying with your tum on the cold floor.  
He has his rifle on him, again, but this time he is also dressed to hunt.

“Are you alright, my lass?”

“All golden up here, sir,” you reassure him, flashing him your teeth in a grin. 

“Good girl.” He winks at you and you giggle. “I'm going out to catch some meaty food. Wanna come with?”

“No, 'pa, I have to tend to the flowers. But I will set the table for us if you end up being late,” you tell him, tying up your hair in a messy ponytail.  
It always end up getting dirty and drenched, if you leave it loose. 

“You do that, my lass, I will try and come back before the sun sets.”

“Have a safe hunt, Grandpa. Love you,” you tell him, almost sing. It is routine, and it's as good to you as your flowers are. 

“Love you too, Jade.” He blows you a kiss and you pretend to catch it and to put it in your pocket, his smile turns shocked, for a moment, and then he's gone. 

His affections come more and more rarely, now that you're a young lady, and you cherish each of them like new seeds to plant. 

*

The first to go is a violet.  
A _Viola Sororia_ , precisely, one with purple and white petals so soft you could have made a duvet out of them.  
One minute, you're watering the bright pink pot, the next there is a pool of fresh water on the floor of your greenhouse. 

You stare at it, munching your lower lip, and then put down the watering can, narrowing your eyes. 

You must be tired, you rationalize. It's been a while since you've spent an entire night asleep.  
Keeping this in mind, you take a deep breath, consider your flowers fondly, make sure every one of them has been watered just right and been shown enough love, and then you leave the greenhouse to go and spend some time with your Grandpa and Becquerel.

You 'pa doesn't show you affection like he used to when you were still a little child, but he never, ever, ever refuse you cuddles when you ask him.  
You sink in the couch, dozing off on his shoulder while he watches one of his awful movies, and you don't think there is anything better than this. 

You dream of pale hands, that can't be yours, cradling your flowerpot of _Viola Sororia_ , a low song being sung in the background, the voice suave, the melody intense and almost magical.  
You dream of purple eyes, apologetic. 

You stare at your own hands when you awaken, the movie long ended and your Grandpa snoring next to you, Becquerel drooling all over your skirt.  
Your fingers are long, but stocky, your palms are calloused from the rifles you use, the work you do in the greenhouse, the hunting and exploring.  
Your skin is all but pale. Your eyes are green.

You wonder where your _Viola Sororia_ is, now, and if her new friend is taking good care of her. 

*

The second one to leave is an orchid. A _Vanilla chamissonis_ , not even bloomed yet, so new to you that you have barely decided a name for her. It's a pity, so much so that you bring yourself to tears just thinking about it.

You stare at the empty place where her pot sat, and cry to yourself for a few minutes. She was new, and she was yours. And now she's gone. Maybe to the same person with pale, delicate hands and purple eyes, or maybe to someone else.  
You don't know, you have no way of knowing unless they appear once again in your dreams tonight, and honestly you don't care for that to happen. 

She was going to be so happy, nestled neatly besides her sisters, and you mourn her disappearance like you've never had to mourn anyone in your life. 

When, later that night, your Grandpa asks you what has your eyes so red and puffy, you tell him you've got some new allergies you didn't know about since he doesn't need to hear how you're losing your friends to some unknown thief. 

And when you go to bed, pouting and hoping said mysterious thief is seeing all the pain they have brought upon your shoulders with their criminal actions, you have so many troubles falling asleep that you almost give up. You're a second away from getting up and going back to the greenhouse, to keep an eye on all your remaining friends, to inform them that they are still loved, to give them a last goodbye in case they're the next to be stolen.

And then, something keeps you in place. You're still, your muscles don't want to move at all, and a face appears in front of you.  
Maybe, you think, you're already asleep. Maybe this is the sleep paralysis that has taken you once again. 

“I was actually looking for an _Orchis cochleata_ ,” the face tells you. You see painted – black – lips move, and purple eyes crinkling and shining and apologetic. 

Well, whoever this is, you're not going to forgive them.  
You flip them off and close your eyes tight.  
Fuck them. 

*

You start planting three pots for every seed.  
As they are all special and beautiful to you, seeing them disappear is heartbreaking every time, but at least you have someone else to remind you of them. 

Your Grandpa comes up in the greenhouse more often, now, and he spends time with you even if he is not such a fan of plants and flowers. 

He likes spending time with you, and you with him. His deep voice is loud and the plants love his meaningless chatter, they vibrate along his friendliness, along the fondness he regards you and your flowers with. 

“You're a little nymph of the forest, my lass, aren't you? Look at all these things, so verdant and flourishing. You've got a green thumb on your little hands, don't you?” he says, he always says things like that.  
You smile at him, tend to your flowers, and you nod along whatever he says. 

A month later, and he has your greenhouse expanded noticeably, giving up three of his own rooms to make space for you and your new hobby.  
You reward him with dinner, hunted and cooked all by yourself, and he's so proud he cries a little in his wineglass. 

*

“Jade,” they call you. They are here every night, and every night you flip them off before falling asleep. Is a new kind of routine, one they find particularly interesting. One they have not gotten tired of, yet. “Jade, pay attention to me, please,” they whine, a smirk on their lips. 

Just this once, you decide to engage them.  
Just this once, though, you swear. 

“How do you know my name?” you ask them, stealing a glance at their face. 

“That's the only question you have? Really?” they raise a pale eyebrow, and you hiss at them. Becquerel growl a little in his throat, but when you look down at him he is still asleep, laid out on the ground beside your bed. “A girl appears in your bedroom after stealing your plants and you ask her how she knows your name? Nothing else at all? What kind of life have you lived, Jade Harley?”

“One that is none of your business, fuckass.” You turn your back on her and deem the decision of caving in and talking to her complete bullshit.  
Zero on ten, never do it again.  
God, what is wrong with you and your shitty decision-making? 

“Oh, I didn't mean to annoy you, Jade. I am sorry.” She – they are a she, apparently – stays silent for a while. You would think she has left, but you can still feel her presence. I's like a static vibration on your skin, a rush of breath – warm and sticky – against your nape. “I know your name because the flowers told me. They love you a lot, did you know?”

You did not know, no, but you guessed it. You do, in fact, love them all very much. You suppose it's normal for them to love you back.

“They told me a lot about you. I'm trying, with some help, to send them back to you. They miss you terribly.” The girl's voice is apologetic again, and you ponder and weight the pros and cons of turning back around again to look at her, to try and define the look in her eyes.  
In the end, you don't. You simply fall asleep to the sound of her hums. 

*

“You don't look happy, my lass.” Your Grandpa is making breakfast, his back to you, but you know he has been staring at you a lot, lately.  
You've worried him. 

You've never happy when you worry him, absent-minded as he is, it means you have been sulking around a lot. But how could you not, when the girl is still stealing your flowers for some unknown reason and does nothing but pester you as you try to sleep?  
How could you not!?

“Is there something I could help you with? God knows, I am not the most sentimental old man you might find, but I do have some experience that you may lack.” He tries a smile, it looks stiff, even in the single corner of his mouth you can see from your position at the table, and you want to ask him to stop, to stop talking, stop trying to pretend everything is fine, stop trying to coax things out your lips. You would have told him already, if you wanted to.

Thing is, you don't want to tell him.

“Everything's fine, 'pa,” you reassure him. You try, at least. It comes out a little more scathing than it should have. 

“You sure don't sound fine to me, lassie,” he singsongs, spinning around to point the spatula at you. He is pouting under his awful mustache, and you sigh at him. “Come on, talk to your grandpa.”

“No.” You cross your arms on the table and bump your forehead against them. You notice you're pouting too. Not exactly the best breakfast you've ever had. 

“Hey,” he sounds just a smudge more serious now, and he sits down next to you. His big hand pat your hair, the back of your head, your nape. “You know you can tell me all about whatever is troubling you, right, Jade? I wouldn't consider you bonkers if you said, for example, that your flowers are being stolen by an unknown entity or something. Maybe a lassie with purple eyes and blonde hair…”

You steal a glance at him, and you feel your cheeks burning, if in embarrassment or anger you don't know. 

“How?” Is the only thing you ask. He grins at you, his eyes crinkle a the corners, the wrinkles only helping in making him seem more mischievous. 

“You think I haven't lived any more than you, my lass, but I have six times your age. I know things that aren't right, especially when they make my lassie sad. _Especially_ especially if they happen under my roof.” He winks, patting the side of his long nose with a fingertip.

*

“Would you plant a rose for me?” the girl asks you one night.  
You stare at her, brows together in a mixture of fury and confusion. 

“What,” you spit out, “so you can steal that too?”

“No, Jade, you would plant it _for me_. And I would take it after you've filled it with love. It would be a gift.”

“I don't want to give you a gift!” you scream, and then you remember that your Grandpa, for all that he is old and doesn't have the same hearing he did in his youth and everything, is a very light sleeper. 

“Why not? Are we not friends, yet?”

“Friends!?” You look at her, stare for as long as you're able to. Her flickering image has been cause of headaches a lot, lately.  
Your fault for keeping looking at her.  
She's undeniably very pretty. Weird, and annoying as one can be, but extremely pretty. “We are not friends! Friends are… they are– they love each other, they don't take away important things from their friends!”

“I know,” she says, whispers. She is looking back now, all sad and contrite, and you turn your back to her, remind yourself you're not obliged to give her any attention, not even if she practically lives in your bedroom. Or, at the very least, the hologram of her face does. “I know, Jade. In theory at least.”

“You…” You wonder, hard, painfully, and the sadness in her voice breaks you apart, but she is not yours to care for, not yours to tend to, not your friend, not your anything. She is not like the flowers in your greenhouse, all beautiful and tender and needy of attentions and soft-spoken words and care. “You've never had any friends?” you end up asking anyway, because you see something in her face, something you don't want to define, not yet, but something that breaks your heart all the same, even without a name. 

“No,” she says, giving you a little smile, a shake of her head. “I had my mom.”

_Had_.  
Yeah, you know how that feels like. You had a mom too, a long time ago. You don't even remember her, you don't even know her name. You have your Grandpa, though, and he makes up for every piece of your family you've lost. He's the only relative you need. 

“Is she gone to the stars, too?”

“The stars? God, no. No,” the girl shakes her head, hard, and she gives out a twisted laugh, it's harsh, a chuckle full of misery and anger. “No, she's probably rotting underground now. Worms eating at her flesh and all. You know, a corpse.”

“That's… That's a very bleak way to look at it,” you say, because your throat his suddenly closed up, your mouth dry, and you can't say anything else. There is a prickle behind your eyes, sharp, hot. Burning white and wet. 

“Bleak is likely all that I have left.”

“Is that why you steal my flowers? Do they keep you company? Do you need someone to keep you company?”  
And while you inquire to her, you ask yourself if you would be willing to be said company, were she to say yes.  
Would you be willing to spend all your free time talking with her, to her, listening to her words? Being her friend?

“I need a bouquet. For her grave.”

*

You plant flowers. You love them, care for them, tend to them, and then you gift them to Rose. That's her name. Rose Lalonde, from a very different place, she told you, a very different time. 

You gift the flowers to her because she needs them more than you do, and because it's always a pleasure to see the small smile on her lips after she successfully takes the pot you've prepared for her and sees the beauty of flowers, smells their sweet scent. 

Rose, you realized, has been deprived of many wonderful things you have all around you. Flowers are just the last on a very long, very sad list. 

“How's your lassie friend, Jade?” your Grandpa asks you. He still spends time with you in the greenhouse, but not as much as before, not as much as when you were perturbed by your flowers' disappearance. 

“Fine, 'pa. Just fine.”

“Uh-uh,” he hums, his green eyes sharp, a worried smile on his mouth, under his mustache, but he keeps words to himself. He doesn't pry, never does. He leaves you your space, you think he's teaching you some lesson or another, here, and you bristle inside.  
You're fifteen, too old for lessons, too old for being coddled like this. 

Your irritation must show, because he hums louder, the ghost of a chuckle, and he gets up from the floor, patting his backside to clean his trousers form the dust and the dirt. “Well, my lass, I'm gonna catch us some food for tonight. Tell your Rose that she's welcome to come down to the dining room and join us.”

“Why?”

“Must make for good conversation, a lassie from somewhere else that appears in holograms, right? Would you refuse an old man his curiosity, Jade?” he says, grinning at you, and your annoyance at him and his subtle lessons evaporates. You grin back and shake your head, your bangs falling in your eyes, a strand going as far as to slip in your mouth. 

“Of course not, 'pa. I will ask her if she can.”

“Good girl.”

*

Rose, it would seem, can and is more than willing to spend the evening meal with you and your Grandpa. She says something to you, something that sounds sarcastic but probably isn't.  
Or, it is, but at the same time it isn't. Rose doesn't speak clearly, never, and you spend way too much time trying to decode her speech. 

More than friendship, you would call your relationship a study. A study in patience, at the very least, and in compassion.  
Rose is a pitiful, alone, pathetic person, and you feel the need to coddle her and tend to her as if she was a pretty flower in a pot.

“Lasses,” your Grandpa welcomes you in the dining room, a bloody piece of meat on a tray, barely even cooked, just as you both like it. “Thank you for joining me. An old man like me, he needs company, you know? We get lonely easily.”

You sigh and take a seat, Rose settling next to you, her incorporeal body mimicking a sitting position. “Stop with the old man act, 'pa. You're still fit enough to hunt.”

“You hunt?” Rose blurts out, and then her cheeks turn to pink and then red and she clears her throat, a hand in front of her mouth. “Er, sir?” 

“Ah, lassie, don't be shy,” your Grandpa says, and he twitches, you see the aborted movements he make, as if he wants to pat Rose on the back as he usually pats you, how he realizes she is not corporeal, and you realize it too. 

You look to her, so pretty and lonely and small, curled up on herself and trying her hardest to appear bold and fearless and perfect.  
And you want to hug her tight, tell her everything will be alright, promise her she will never be alone again.  
But she is not really here and you can't. You can't promise anything, give anything to her but your flowers. 

“I do hunt. Sometimes Jade helps too. We have to keep us fed, don't we?”

“Of course. I wasn't–” Rose takes a deep breath, for a moment, panic blooms in her purple irises. She shakes her head and she's fine again. “I was not about to berate your for it. Survival is survival.”

“Yes. It is,” your Grandpa smiles at her. 

Dinner is just a little more awkward than what you're used to.  
Offhandedly, almost unconsciously, you await to see the day she will feel comfortable in your family, fitting in like she belongs.

You realize only later, much later, as you try to sleep through the noise of her working on her machines, that she is possibly not here to stay. 

She is here to make a bouquet for her mother. Nothing else. 

Why should she decide to stay?

*

The flowerpots are going to be untouched by any hand that is not yours, after today.  
The last to go, the last you give away freely, is a lavender rose. 

You…  
You feel your cheeks burning as you set the pot in the place Rose needs it.  
Repeating to yourself that she doesn't know the meaning of the flowers doesn't help, because you know it, even if she doesn't, and you know what you're giving her. 

“Now what?” you ask her, your voice trembling only a little. You could fault it to the distortions. She doesn't need to know how you feel. 

“Now I bring them to her. She used to tell me all about flowers, Jade. She loved them so much,” Rose tells you, her eyes full of tears. She never cries, though. You've never seen or heard her cry once, in all the months you've spent next to her.

She clears her throat. It's a thing she does often, you've noticed.  
She cradles the flowerpot close to her chest and she buries her face in the petals, the dirt, the foliage. 

“Hey,” you call her, “Rose, be careful. She has thorns.”

She raises her face and there it is, blood.  
You keep your freaking out for yourself like a good, responsible lass, and you stare at Rose as she pats her wounded cheek. There is something in her eyes that you can't quite decipher. 

“What… What do I do now?” she asks, and her voice is shaking. She looks straight at you, she stares, eyes wide, pupils as small as needles. 

“Disinfect it?” 

“What…?”

“Rose, have you never got hurt in your life?” you inquire, and you think of all the times you've had to call your Grandpa to help you with a scratch or a bruise or a cut or a broken bone.  
Children get hurt, it's just normal.  
Children get hurt and their guardians fix them up. 

“No,” Rose says, shakes her head, her hair falls against her wound, gets smeared in red. “No, I… Jade–” she takes a very deep, very shaky breath, and you get it, suddenly. She is freaking the fuck out and you're not helping at all.  
She is hurt and you're not being helpful. 

“Shh,” you murmur, getting closer to the hologram, “shh, Rose, it's okay. It's just a scratch. It will stop bleeding in a moment.”  
Scratches like that, they hurt, they burn, but they're not dangerous.  
Unless Rose has not been vaccinated for tetanus. “Are you on par with you shots?”

“My what?”

“Vaccines? You know, those injections the doctors give you that make you feel bad for a day and prevent pandemics?” you say, even if you already know she doesn't have any idea what you're talking about.  
Rose is definitely from another place and another time.  
Some sort of weird, bland future, you suppose. A future you don't want to live long enough to see. 

Not if there are no flowers. Flowers are the most important part of your life. 

“No, no, we don't… I don't… I don't know, I don't know anything like that, oh god, I'm bleeding, Jade! This is blood!”

“Yes, yes, but it's okay,” you tells her, your hand goes through her hologram and now more than ever you hate her unreality.

You would take one second to fix her, were she next to you, here, in your greenhouse.  
You would pat her shoulder, maybe even hug her tight as you've fantasized to do more than once, and you would console whatever fear she has.

“It's okay, Rose. It's just a small cut. Listen to me, come on.” You hear her breaths coming faster, messier, and you've never had a panic attack of your own, no, but you know what the signs are.

Your Grandpa said, some years ago, that not everyone is like you. 

“ _Not everyone reacts with rage, my lass. Not everyone screams and breaks things and throws a tantrum._ ” Here, he stopped to chuckle at you. You had pulled one of your pouting faces, you're sure. “ _Some people get really scared. All you have to do is remind them to breathe slowly and they should be fine._ ”

But, how to convince Rose to breathe slowly?  
She is not listening to you. She is completely unresponsive, fallen down a pit of bad thoughts and freaking out and messy smears of blood all over her face.  
That, surely doesn't help. 

“Shh, shh, it will be fine. You have to find some water. Clean the cut and it will be okay, I promise,” you say, and you keep saying soft words of reassurance to her, shushing her whenever her cries get loud, whenever her breath stops coming altogether. 

In the end, it takes you twenty minutes to calm her down, and she wipes her cheeks without looking towards you, her blood eventually has caked on her skin and she whines low in her mouth as she pulls on the cut.  
It's nothing, you think, but you're also used to the pain of such small scratches. She is not. 

Rose is not like you. She has not lived a life like your own, she doesn't know what you know. 

“Rose,” you call her, your voice gruff with worry and soft with concern at the same time. She doesn't turn to you, she shakes, trembles. She is an earthquake, a building ready to fall and crumble and turn to rubber. “Rose,” you repeat, and again she ignores you, maybe too lost in her fears, maybe too embarrassed. “You're okay now. It's okay. Look at me, please,” you beg her, and she disappears in a crackle of static noise.

*

Your Grandpa stares at you as you munch on your food. It doesn't taste right. Nothing tastes right of feels right now that Rose has left you. 

You knew she would leave, though. You knew she was only with you because she needed flowers.

You _knew_. 

And now she's gone but you thought–

You thought she would stay. You thought she would stay with you, in your home, as a hologram, forever. 

You thought your company was better than the solitude of her very different place and very different time and very different life.  
You thought she was your friends for real. 

“You want to tell me what happened, lass?” your Grandpa asks, and you shake your head. No.  
God, no, you don't want to say anything, you don't want to think about anything that happened. You don't want to think about Rose Lalonde and her terrified face and the feeling of being pointlessly _there_ , of not being able to help her get through her fears. 

You don't want to say a word. Not to him, not to Bec when he comes sniffing and licking your tears off your face, not when he snuggles up to your side as you lay down on the greenhouse cold floor. 

You don't want to think about anything at all, and most of all you don't want to think about how you fucked up enough to make her go away.

“Did you have a fight?” your Grandpa wonders, taking away your plate, maybe tired of seeing you playing with your food. He puts the leftovers in a glass container and in the fridge it goes, ready to be warmed up whenever you get hungry enough. “Friends fight all the time, my dear lassie, give it time and it will be fine.”

“No.”

“No?” He turns to look at you, a sad smirk on his face, but also understanding. “How do you know your Rose will not be back in an hour, ready to apologize for whatever happened? Do you see the future and never told me, lass?”

“I don't, but I know she won't anyway!” you scream at him, tears welling up in your eyes, blurring your vision. “We didn't have a fight or anything. She just left! She was done with my flowers and she left!”

You never tell him the truth of her disappearance

~*~

It's winter again. The worst season. 

Your birthday is in two days.  
This is the twenty-seventh, you think. You haven't been paying attention to that, not really. 

Your Grandpa is not here with you anymore, and he was the one keeping up with time and whatnot. You prefer focusing on your flowers. 

Twelve years down the road, and the bitterness is still with you. You don't plant _Viola Sororia_ in your greenhouse, nor orchids, and most of all you don't plant roses. 

Fuck roses, they're ugly anyway. 

The doorbell rings.  
You have not ordered anything, and mail is rare to come all the way out to your island.  
You sigh, as you trek down the stairs, foregoing, for once, the transportalizer.

Becquerel follows you religiously, slowly, he is getting old too, and he will leave you too, just like your Grandpa left, just like Rose left. 

The doorbell rings again, longer this time, impatient. You huff and call out to whomever is waiting for you to calm the fuck down. 

The house is immense and you're not going to run to them because you're not desperate for company, not at all. You're not desperate to see another human being in the flesh, no sir. You're perfectly happy and comfortable being a lonely piece of shit, all alone with your dying dog, out here in the middle of fucking nowhere. 

You open the front door. 

The woman on the other side is pale, with a bob cut of platinum blond hair. She smiles a black smile, and her hands are delicate and small and white as the snow covering the ground. It gets cold out here in the winter. And it gets lonely even more than usual, even the birds ignoring you, even the fauna abandoning you to yourself. 

“Hi, Jade,” the woman says, and at her back there are dozens of flowerpots, all brightly colored, all verdant and beautiful. 

You invite her inside.  



End file.
